


Change and Favour

by chantefable



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Romance, Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Pastiche, Personal Growth, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-08-21 11:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: A most credible account of how Mr Draco Malfoy, of Wiltshire, lost his fortune and reputation, and then, through ingenuous improvements, luck, and love, gained it back.Or, once upon a time in wizarding Britain, Giovanni Boccaccio style.





	Change and Favour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



> Dear partypaprika, your prompts were numerous, complex, and inspiring. I diligently tried to combine as many as possible.  
> You mentioned: non-linear story-telling and canon divergence, angst, conflict, magical powers, marriage of convenience / arranged marriage, realisations of the "oh no they're hot" variety, slow burn and coming to understand each other, secret identity, Draco/Harry and Draco/Neville. Your letter also inspired a loose interpretation of the motifs of reputation, identity, relationships and public perception as a framework for the story. Thank you for your interesting ideas, I hope the story is to your liking.

“A little to beguile time idly discontented, and satisfy some of my solitary friends  
here in the country, I have hastily undertook to write of the weary fancies of the night,  
wherein if I weary none with my weak fancies, I will hereinafter lean harder on my pen,  
and fetch the pedigree of my praise from the utmost of pains.”

Thomas Nashe, Terrors of the Night, or, A Discourse on Apparitions

“You should look into a mirror: if you look fine, do fine things;  
if you look ugly, correct by nobility the defect of your nature.”

Bias of Priene

*

Who can with absolute confidence claim to know the truth about the matters of long ago? A plain occurrence, and even more so an extraordinary one, if told and retold a hundred thousand times should grow beyond the dry facts and actions of the parties involved, and the story that people have willed themselves to believe in swiftly becomes more powerful that the events that had actually befallen the persons immediately involved in the matter. And so a sinister web is spun tight and thick, and proper intent and transactions that had nudged history forward abruptly matter less than what people have been led to presume of those.

Remaining in this frame of mind, one might assume that we are about to spin a dreary and pitiful tale of exposure; but although it is commendable to shine a light of decency on the fading glories of the entitled and the insipid squalor of the powerful, it is equally loathsome to leave those who had been ill-favoured by fortune in the dark. And so we shall turn to one such fellow who had tumbled down from the wheel of fate, and indeed been quite trampled on, with neither people of the world nor luck being disposed to let him crawl back to a slightly more agreeable position in life. 

But we maintain that if one had been a tiresome, vicious, and disagreeable person, one is not bound to remain one for the rest of their days. And although those very people who had been wilfully blind to the most horrid unpleasantness of one's character in better circumstances now remain unseeing in the face of one's redemption, a man who has chosen the path of honesty shall not despair, for worthy actions bestow confidence and dignity that will eventually outweigh vainer blessings in life.

There was once in Wiltshire a moderately young man by name Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, a Death Eater. _Luck_ being a rotten, flighty creature, and _Circumstance_ a whimsical wretch with a firm hand, this Draco Malfoy, having been a person of dubious accomplishments for the longest while, once fell, through no conscious covet of his own, into the grim trade of being a diligent procurer of death and misfortune. Let us briefly consider this turn of events, and grant it our fierce disapproval, before directing our attention, by nature transitory, to subjects that are less likely to make us weep.

(Certainly, in order to beget an idea of the man's way of thinking, we must first consider his upbringing and the string of experiences that directed his will and whimsy, and there is no proper way to examine those but to begin at the very root of the matter, namely, his familial situation and the vicissitudes of education.)

His mother Narcissa was of the long-standing and illustrious House of Black, and his father was a man of brutal guile and contentious style, and through this combination of money, acclaim, and inclination, Draco grew up well-provided for in worldly goods, and parental affection was not scarce in Malfoy Manor, either. However, his parents failed to provide the boy with steadfast, generous character, and since they happened to have been personally lacking in magnanimity and self-abnegation, did not lead by personal example.

As a youth, Draco was used to reaping pleasure and enjoyment at the expense of others, and was free with his words and actions, landing heavy blows – both figurative and quite tangible – for mischief, vengeance, or cruel delight. His father's explicit views, and his mother's delicate silences, were both similarly steeped in disgust for their fellow creatures, and so it is no wonder that, reared in a golden cage of money, lineage, privilege, and pride, Draco was growing up to be curmudgeonly and xenophobic, without a sliver of shame for both of these repugnant traits.

And so in the years leading to the Second Voldemort War, and in those very times filled with clandestine terror and brutal agony, Draco Malfoy found himself on the side of the Death Eaters. However, by numerous chances, the tribulations and trials of character he was forced to experience in the service of the deluded tyrant birthed a new kind of sanity, and Draco Malfoy acquired, gradually and painfully, a different kind of understanding of the ways of the world. Performing gruesome tasks to repulsive ends, he honed his magical ability, but he also experienced grand revelations, and eventually comprehended the atrocity of their cause. He knew then that ruthlessness and carelessness were the principal traders in misfortune large and small, and sought to eradicate these very foundations of his behaviour with great perseverance.

After the war, the pervasive anguish and ubiquitous discomfort were part and parcel of Draco Malfoy's life. Seemingly endless and diligently bestowed on him through the impulse of public disapproval and the justice system, the problems amounted to far more than continuous war reparations from the family estate and universal ostracism on account of the Malfoys' reprobate actions. His father's last days were marred by bitterness and disillusionment, and Lucius Malfoy's fervent unwillingness to accept both his grave errors and his dwindling wealth doubtless hastened the man's departure from the realm of mortals. His mother, with grief and helplessness eating at her like a nefarious disease, could not offer her son any words of guidance and consolation, and would no longer accept comfort and affection. She wasted away not six months after Lucius' death, and her son's sorrow was hardly alleviated by the fact that she had managed to keep the blinds over her eyes the whole time, and resolutely protected her judgement from the assault of reality even as the immutable worldview she had steadfastly adhered to for many years was crumbling into nothingness under the heavy hammer of truth and consequences.

Having lamented his sad state of affairs, Draco Malfoy did not turn his gaze skyward in search of further retribution, divine, magical, or political, for his numerous sins, nor indeed did he direct it inward seeking penalties that he himself could administer upon his soul to induce even more suffering. Instead, he applied his meagre wit and modest erudition, those last resources he had left after the last stack of family Galleons had dwindled into nothing upon the arrangements for Narcissa Malfoy's funeral, and proceeded to examine, with proper diligence, the current social standing of fellow former Death Eaters, repentant and otherwise, in order to fully comprehend how the genuine goodwill that he was cultivating within himself, and the painful remorse that accompanied his every breath, could be put to good use.

It was only proper, then, that his keen attention turned to three people whose experiences heralded three very different paths: Gregory Goyle, Pansy Parkinson, and Severus Snape.

Pithy words shall be applied to the situation of Gregory Goyle: suffice it to say that he had emerged from the war and orphan and a low-level magical domestic worker, been briefly imprisoned for a number of delinquencies that had occurred during the war, then spent a while under community supervision and thoroughly settled in service, now employed at one of the lesser-famous inns in magical London. With no desire to pursue academic education, he found vocational training and apprenticeship more suited to the natural range of his abilities, and fruitfully combined his learning, daily work, and small steps in careful contemplation of the nature of his endeavours, mistakes, and values. Thus, within a number of years, he proceeded to have a clarity of mind which was not profound but proved to be very pertinent for his personal well-being and his interactions with others, and was recognised by those who noticed him as a redeemed young man who knew how to scrub floors and polish tables very well; such acceptance warmed him, and he experienced to further impulses towards violence or vitriol despite the fact that his wages were not very high, and patrons persisted in scruffing the table surfaces day in and day out. Indeed, he oftentimes addressed Draco, who happened to visit him at the inn and grab a pint, to let go of nonsense and get a proper job, so that the remaining precious few hours of the day may be devoted to small responsibilities and small kindnesses that make the heart lighter and life easier. It was this humility and its small but precious fruit that inspired Draco to gaze upon his wrongdoings and examine his attitudes, searching for the direction in which he was going to change the alignment of his character. 

Perchance you have been under the assumption that a person's esteem is always measured solely by their own accomplishments, and if any measure of worth is to be passed by association, then it is only negligible, for people are able to see the wood for the trees, tell apart left and right, up and down, and generally distinguish between a Niffler and a Fwooper even if the former attempts an ear-piercing screech that befits the latter. Therefore, without deviating from the topic of Draco Malfoy's life story, we are able to easily disabuse you of that notion by using the same example he had discovered in his immediate circle of acquaintance, namely, that of his former girlfriend and fellow Hogwarts pupil Pansy Parkinson, who had been thoroughly ostracised and perhaps disproportionately reviled in the aftermath of the Second Voldemort War, cursorily remembered for the murky political affiliations of her family, the extremely loud and public display of a lack of empathy by her immature self, and the absence of conventional attractiveness in her facial features.

Following the dissolution of her family's overt association with all and sundry rapidly cycling members of public administration, and the subsequent shakiness of their economic position, Pansy took it upon herself to become no longer deaf to her mother's sobering entreaties to pull herself together and cast off the facade of an insulted and entitled girl, for it was not advancing her cause in the slightest. They no longer resided in a place inhabited by anyone of substance and no longer had the means to sustain their erstwhile material ambition, and most importantly, now that the sanctity of laughable arrogance and casual disdain appeared to have been whisked away by the whirlwinds of reform, restoration, and revisionism, the Parkinsons desperately needed their legally adult daughter to fend off for herself despite the glaring absence of personal accomplishments, natural talents, and social likeability. Having internalised this chilling realisation, Pansy proceeded on the path to cement her personal security with as much diligence as her intellect and familiar experiences proclaimed to be appropriate, and with inasmuch fervour as an urgent need to marry up and construct a new identity merited. Being unable to find a dashing handsome wizarding billionaire in shining armor (which, given a most thorough absence of the aforementioned species in wizarding Britain at the time, is absolutely understandable), Pansy unscrupulously sifted through the available options, justly deeming romantic inclination to be an unnecessary accessory to marriage, far outshined by financial stability, a willingness to develop a degree of mutual respect, and a modicum of temperamental compatibility. It was by applying these rigorous standards that she soon found a candidate not altogether abhorrent, namely, the father of her two schoolmates, the Greengrasses, who happened to be both affable enough to find Pansy's particular down-to-earth graces uniquely suited to his own disposition and generous enough not to fill her head with false proclamations of amorous obsession and not to seek better-looking social pariahs after they had had their conversation. To no small profit, Pansy became Mrs Greengrass and focussed on the acquisition of hereinto underdeveloped domestic skills and sound judgment in matters of lifestyle planning, resolutely ignoring the possibilities of awkwardness between herself and her two newly acquired adult daughters until said possibilities dissipated into nothing for want of scandals fanning the fire.

Having been sensitive to a mild analogy between the aforementioned situation and the upstart pretenses of his nouveau riche father and his honourable mother, who had formerly ennobled a Malfoy by the grace of her attentions, Draco could not deny a degree of practicality that such a solution carried; nevertheless, he privately maintained that as a married woman Pansy had very promptly grown unbearably fidgety and annoying, and Mr Greengrass continued to be very dour and very sour company, even though he gazed upon Draco's presence at an occasional dinner within the Greengrass household with a tolerant eye.

The way the pendulum had swung for Draco Malfoy's godfather, the late Headmaster of Hogwarts Severus Snape, is perhaps both the most and the least surprising, for on the one hand, the change in public opinion was the most radical and keenly perceived, and on the other hand, there are only two ways in which a pendulum can swing, and the further it happens to be one way, the more dizzying its swoosh the other way is bound to be, so however disconcerting, the transformation must be deemed undeniably natural in all its appalling perplexity.

There is a certain elegance to duping tenacious men on one's deathbed, for should one luck out with a last confidant who is both persistent and gullible, then sooner rather than later the shaky flame of one's reputation is bound to be fanned into a veritable blaze of sainthood, even if one's every breath including the last one had done nothing but carry forth the worst sorts of lies and treacheries. And so a lifetime of sin can be imagined a lifetime of devotion, and then this song is sung by the hoodwinked fool for all and sundry until it bleeds from the ears of every witch and wizard on every filthy crossroads of the country, and they who have been the worst in life are likened to the best after death. One can certainly agree that if there is a force to undo a life of woebegone wrongdoing, then it is most assuredly not magic, but cruel cunning of the most mundane nature.

They say that, thus beguiled by Severus Snape's account of the events, Mr Harry Potter then proceeded to extol his numerous accomplishments in times of war and peace alike, painting virtue over every deed with a very thick brush. Urging all manner of folk to treat Severus Snape's body and memory with utmost reverence, Mr Potter indeed exceeded all expectations, even the most outrageous ones, that the departed gentlewizard might have placed upon his hastily executed attempt at persuasion. As all know, gossip and passion far outpace truth and reflection, and soon every home in wizarding Britain, from the high to the humble, was filled to the brim with breathless talks of daring most supreme, and bravery, and steadfastness, and gilded nonsense of broken hearts and tokens of affection, so that no room for a keen inquisitive spirit remained, and should a question about the actual murky sequence of unsavoury events have been voiced, it would have roused no interest. 

It is the way of the world that after times of pain and bloodshed, terror and agony, the tales of cold grudges and mistreated children, and self-service wrapped in self-loathing, entice far less than those of glory, courage, and noble sacrifice, and so it should surprise no one that in the tumultuous days after the Second Voldemort War, Severus Snape was hailed, by Harry Potter no less, to be the bravest man, and Dumbledore the kindest, as well as most clever and caring. How sad it is, though, that those who are hurt are often the ones to build dazzling shrines to the whips and chains that abused them, and those who could and should know the truth best opt to throw the hard past on the altar of the shaky present, and burn everything until the smoke of a more comfortable and acceptable lie rises and shrouds the chilling yore in thick wisps of faulty yet glorious memories.

Having ruminated on the many ways that people's reputations may change, and how these may occur both in conjunction and independently of shifts in demeanour or any profound and purposeful remoulding of one's character, Draco Malfoy further pondered the tools at his disposal to seek a not altogether abysmal social existence for himself while at the same time gaining an internal equilibrium and strengthening the kind of personal disposition that would enable him, with a little audacity, to truthfully consider himself a moderately agreeable fellow.

And thus, combining the knowledge of numerous chances that had brought Gregory Goyle, Pansy Parkinson, and Severus Snape where they were now, intellectually, socially, and existentially, Draco Malfoy concluded that the most logical, profitable, and morally beneficial decision would be to marry a person who would grant him financial stability, societal esteem, and unerring impetus for personal growth. Nevertheless, this combination of requirements made his pool of candidates even more shallow than the one Pansy had had to fish in for a husband. Indeed, since Draco had admitted to himself with great insight that he was incredibly vain and passionate for the male form, he only considered two options, those of similarly young but refreshingly affluent wizards who possessed firm character, a certain openness, and an undeniably lush physical form: Harry Potter, the saviour of the wizarding world as we know it, and Neville Longbottom (runner up in the same worthy endeavour, as the history books now say).

And, having applied himself to the task of acting upon good will and controlling the more unsavory impulses that still roused their heads due to the force of habit and the flaws of his character, Draco proceeded to capture the affection of one of his chosen life companions and to secure the friendship of the other, which admittedly surprised him and a large number of people in their common circle of acquaintance for a number of years to come. As a great solace to his spouse, Draco's ensuing married existence proved to be not merely comfortable but stimulating, for he was able to find fulfillment in employment and community relationships that he treasured dearly. 

Thus, by adapting to fickle _Circumstance_ by virtue of cognizant self-improvement, and luring in _Luck_ with the charming company of _Reason_ and _Kindness_ , one may establish an agreeable arrangement with _Love_ , _Success_ , and _Worth_ , and be as assuredly delighted by it as _Fate _allows it.__

**Author's Note:**

> Secret Identity Character, or, choose your own textual adventure: the reader picks Draco's husband. It's the one you want it to be.


End file.
